Private Dick
by UnstableIntention
Summary: Stiles might not be the greatest private detective in the world, but he's never been caught before.


"Is there a reason you've been sitting outside my house for the last three hours?"

Flailing hard, Stiles Stilinski shot upright like a jack-knife, clipping his elbow off the steering wheel and blaring the horn of his jeep in a short, hard blast.

"Holy shhhhh…"

Grabbing at his chest, his heart thundering beneath his ribs, he turned to glare at the man looming outside his open window, one strong forearm pressed along the roof as he leaned forward to peer inside. He had short, neat hair, a strong, stubbled jaw, and the dark sunglasses he wore did little to cut the intensity of his gaze as it swept over Stiles' face, but he knew that behind those glasses the man's eyes were a dark, jeweled blue unlike any he'd ever seen before.

The pictures had done Peter Hale no credit.

"Dude," he chuckled nervously with a smile that was way too wide and way too bright even as he leaned back and away, ready to bluff for his life. "Seriously? Not cool! Sneaking up on a guy like that…"

The man outside his vehicle stayed silent, his face blank, waiting.

Crap.

Ok.

He could do this… He was good at getting out of sticky situations.

"Look man," he said shakily, holding up his hands in surrender, "I'm just waiting for a friend, I wasn't…"

"Save it sweetheart," the man growled, and his voice was low and rough and he was showing his teeth just a little, sharp and white and wolfish, and Stiles felt a shiver run down his spine. "Either you tell me right now why you've been following me around all week or I'm calling the police."

Oh god.

That would mean his dad, and the whole department and oh god, code red, abort, abort, abort…

"No!" he yelped, his hand flashing out to grab the man's wrist where he'd started to lift a cell phone to his ear, and then his eyes went wide when he realized that he was forcibly restraining a man much stronger and more volatile than he was - if the breadth of his chest and the word of his ex-fiancée was anything to judge by. "Shit, sorry, I… I'm taking my hand away."

Retreating back inside the car, he dragged his hands down over his face with a sigh.

Stiles wasn't a great PI, he knew that. Oh, he was good at the analysis, at the research and putting the clues together, but the surveillance, the stealth? Those weren't his game. He was clumsy and loud, and too sarcastic for his own good but he'd never been flat-out caught before.

This was a serious low point.

The _only_ way it could get any worse was for this guy to call the cops and have him arrested for stalking by his own father and the deputies that had known Stiles since he was practically in diapers.

"Look, you're Peter Hale right?" he mumbled, his face still buried in his hands. "You can't call the cops on me ok, it'll _literally_ ruin my life for like, _years_."

"How unfortunate for you."

The words were silky, snarky, and they overrode Stiles' embarrassment enough that his head snapped up again just so he could glare at the guy.

His ex had warned him that he was kind of an asshole.

"But that doesn't answer my question and it certainly doesn't explain why you know my name and I don't know yours."

Ok, that was… weird.

"Right, um…" Stiles hedged, confused by the way Peter had dropped the angry, gravelly tone and gone soft. "I'm Stiles. Stilinski."

Peter snorted and shoved off the car, and Stiles felt his defenses rise.

"Hey, it's my real name ok?" he snapped, digging his ID out of his pocket and flipping the leather wallet open. "See?"

Behind his sunglasses, Peter cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

Jerk.

"Private detective," he hummed, flicking the ID in Stiles' hand, and _whoops_. "Who hired you?"

"People can usually guess," Stiles deflected, not willing to give up his client's name even as this whole job went slowly down the tubes.

"Humor me," Peter said with a smirk. "I'm the kind of man that's got more than one enemy in the world."

"Usually the enemy is the one I'm investigating."

This earned him a full-bodied laugh, and oh, that was nice. It transformed the guy's whole being, made his shoulders go slack and his mouth curve in a smile, showing off straight, white teeth. Pushing his sun-glasses up onto the top of his head, he looked back at Stiles with eyes that crinkled at the corners, glinted with a little bit of wicked mischief.

 _Pretty_ …

"Well I certainly won't argue that," he grinned, leaning back in to Stiles' window, looming, filling the frame. "I'm not a particularly nice man, Stiles Stilinski. But I don't recall having done anything recently to warrant being tailed by a private detective."

"Really," he asked sweetly, "Not even dumping your fiancée at the altar and taking all her cash with you?"

… Whoops.

All mirth and poorly hidden amusement drained out of Peter's face along with a bit of his color, and Stiles felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as the guy's hand flashed inside the jeep, popped the lock and wrenched the door open. He barely had time to squawk in protest before he was being grabbed by the arm, dragged out of the vehicle and up the walk towards the neat little two-story Stiles had been staking out since the beginning of the afternoon.

Ok, this wasn't good.

See, _this_ was why he'd gone in for a concealed carry permit - to keep from being manhandled by the pissed off husbands he was hired to photograph stepping out with the mistress.

His dad was _so_ gonna hear about this, rejecting his application, laughing him out of the office…

At least, if he lived.

Practically tossing him into the house, Peter slammed the door shut and turned a set of three deadbolts, driving Stiles' impending sense of dread full home before squeezing past him and darting into a large, open living room. Flinching as he passed, Stiles considered his escape options but was caught watching with a morbid sense of fascination as his mark snapped the blinds shut over the picture windows, ducked to peer out at the street.

"Did she follow you?" he snarled without turning around and Stiles felt his heart skip.

"Wait, what?"

"Kate!" Peter snapped, jerking the heavy curtains shut and whirling on him with eyes narrowed in anger. "Did she follow you?"

"What… no!" Stiles yelped, hands up in surrender. Taking a step back because the guy was clearly unhinged, he miscalculated the distance between himself and the couch and ended up going down with a flail, landing with an oomph as the leather cushions practically swallowed him.

"Are you sure?" Peter demanded, looming over him now and yeah, that was much worse.

"Look, Mr. Hale," Stiles said with a nervous chuckle, trying to sink even further into the couch. "Clearly there's more going on here than a simple ' _my fiancée left me_ ,' so how about I just…"

"I'm _not_ her fiancé," Peter snarled, practically spitting out the word, and Stiles swallowed, leaning as far back and away as he could.

Yeah, that much was pretty obvious at this point.

"Ok," he agreed, going for a soothing tone. "Ok. You're not her fiancé, that's cool. That's fine."

"It's not _fine_ ," Peter hissed with a glare, but at least he'd stepped back, unballed his fists. "It's the furthest thing from fine. Where is she?"

"Who, Kate?" Stiles asked dumbly, more focused on fear of bodily harm than the conversation as Peter began to pace back and forth in long, harsh strides in the narrow space between Stiles' knees and the coffee table.

"No, the fucking queen of England!" the man snapped. "Yes _Kate_ , Kate Argent, the woman who hired you to find me! Where is she?"

"Yeah, I mean I can't really tell you that…" he squeaked, but apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

"Listen you little shit," Peter growled, whirling on him again and stabbing a finger at his chest, "That bitch has been stalking me for two years, so either you spill your guts right now or we can go down to the police precinct and you can do it there!"

"Baltimore!" Stiles yelped, all vows of client/detective confidentiality out the window.

Crap, this guy practically had him figured out already. Threaten him with his own father and he'd sing like a canary.

"She's in Baltimore," he continued, watching as the light of rage slowly faded from Peter's eyes and he stepped back, his chest heaving beneath the thin material of his t-shirt. "I got the GPS off her cell when she called. I figured she hired me because we both live in California…"

"She hired you because you're a shitty detective," Peter scoffed, rolling his eyes and turning away again.

"Hey!"

Glaring with indignation Stiles considered defending himself, but the guy was finally relaxing, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders and his face smoothing out, the frenetic energy of his pacing slowing down to an inner stillness that was almost eerie in comparison.

Still.

"You know I did run a couple of background checks," he said, and Peter's gaze flicked back to him as his mouth quirked in a frown. "Couldn't find anything. No police reports, no restraining orders…"

"Can't find what hasn't been filed," he muttered, coming to a stop with feet planted wide and his arms crossed over his chest. He was staring off into space now and talking more to himself than to Stiles. "I don't have any evidence against her, and Kate's good at what she does. Nothing's ever been proven, and the accusations would have made things worse for everyone but her…"

And ok, yeah, cryptic much, but something else suddenly had Stiles' attention.

"Is something burning?"

"Oh dammit," Peter growled, and then he was stalking out of the room, followed by the sudden shrill beep of a fire alarm.

Startled, jerking his phone from his pocket ready to hit speed dial on the fire department, Stiles leapt to his feet and followed, only to find a kitchen rapidly filling up with thick, grey smoke.

"Open the windows!" Peter snarled, pulling a pan from the over and dumping it into the sink, starting the faucet.

Hopping to, Stiles darted around a small, square dining table and started shoving up the sashes, sucking in lungfuls of clean, cool air as he went. Behind him the wretched, high-pitched shriek finally cut off, and he turned around just in time to see Peter on his toes, stretching up to jerk the battery from the alarm on the ceiling and showing off an impressive set of abdominals.

 _Woah_ , down boy. What the hell? Sure, it had been a while since Stiles had gotten laid, and he was still pretty pissed about the way his last relationship had ended - hence today's debacle - but he'd just met this guy. He was Stiles' mark for god's sake, and regardless of how hot he was, Stiles was pretty sure that he didn't _like_ him.

"So, uh…" he mumbled, distracting himself by wandering over to the sink and staring down at the charred black pucks sitting under the water, "What's for lunch?"

"I _was_ warming tortillas," Peter said with a hint of accusation in his tone. "At least before I decided to go confront the guy creeping at the end of my sidewalk."

"Right. Sorry… about that."

Peter sighed, hard and exasperated. "Never mind," he huffed, stepping around him to a cabinet and reaching up to pull down a bag of tortilla chips. "Just be glad it was me that caught you. This is actually a pretty nice neighborhood; we _do_ have neighborhood watch. The soccer moms are pretty vicious."

"Speaking from experience?" Stiles asked, watching as the man took a cast iron skillet from the broiler, safe from the smoke-effects of the oven. The smell of peppers, onions, and marinated beef assaulted his senses and he instantly started to drool - he'd run out of fruit snacks and gold fish thirty minutes into his stake-out and suddenly home-made fajitas seemed a lot more relevant to his immediately happiness than worrying about being held hostage by the man he'd been sent to spy on.

"Not by choice, believe me," Peter sneered as he poured the stir-fried fix-ins out onto a cutting board and pulled a large chef's knife from a butcher block on the counter. Stiles might have paled just a little but he was too busy chopping to notice. "I have little patience for children, but in any case I'd prefer something a little more… rough around the edges than a minivan." Glancing up at Stiles with a smirk, he scraped his steak over the platter of chips with a flourish. "A Jeep for instance."

Stiles blinked.

If he'd been unsure before, well, _that_ was _definitely_ flirting.

Licking dry lips, his heart picking up in his chest, Stiles waited until the man had turned around and stuck his head into the refrigerator before her responded.

"Like it rough, do you?" he asked, his voice reasonably level.

This time he got a real grin that seemed full of wicked promises, and it sent a bolt of heat down his nerves as Peter came back to the counter with arms full.

"I'm the type of man that can appreciate all manner of things, Mr. Stilinski," he purred, and then he was snapping open a bag of shredded cheese with a plastic pop that effectively shattered the tension.

"Just Stiles," he said awkwardly as Peter turned away to stick his heaping platter of fajitas-turned-nachos back under the broiler, sticking out his hand when he turned back. "And look, I am sorry, about…"

Arcing an eyebrow, Peter looked at him with calculating intensity before accepting the handshake, his fingers firm and warm and a little rough, and Stiles wondered what he did for a living.

Except… well.

Just because she was stalking him didn't mean she didn't have a good reason to, right?

"So listen," he started hesitantly, and once again Peter lifted an eyebrow as he stirred up a container of sour cream, a glass dish of something green that smelled like cilantro and lime. "About Kate..."

"Let me guess," Peter sneered, hatred flooding back into his voice as his shoulders went taught with tension. "She doesn't give a damn who I'm fucking; she just wants you to find her money."

"Um, yeah," Stiles said slowly, and then the last horrible piece finally fell into place and he went cold with a heavy sense of dread and disappointment. "It's… not her money is it?"

"What do you think?" he asked flatly.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

While Stiles took a moment to have a small existential crisis, Peter retrieved his nachos from the broiler, drizzling them messily with cilantro and sour cream before grabbing two plates and a roll of paper towel. Juggling the lot, he cast Stiles an unimpressed look before heading into the living room, calling back over his shoulder as he went.

"Grab the beer out of the fridge!"

Startled out of his reverie, horribly lucid nightmares about having to turn in his detective's badge and move back in with his father at the age of twenty four after being charged as an accomplice to robbery and stalking, Stiles was too scattered and confused to do anything but comply, grabbing the case of craft beer from the top shelf and following after. Peter had dragged the coffee table in closer to the couch and propped up his boots, a plate of nachos already balanced in his hand as he produced an Xbox controller out of thin air and pulled up a Netflix account on his flat screen.

"Sit," he commanded, not even bothering to take his eyes off the television. "Spill on my couch and I'll kill you."

And well, who was Stiles to argue with that?

"So," he said conversationally, bluffing his way past his awkwardness and uncertainty by flopping down next to Peter and twisting the tops off two bottles. "Are you really as loaded as Kate said?"

Peter snorted, tossed his remote onto the table and plucked a bottle of beer from his hand.

"Depends. How much money did she want you to get out of me?"

"She might've said something about millions…"

"Going for the gold then."

"Wait, like, _real_ gold?" Stiles asked, pausing as he scooped himself a plate of nachos.

Settling back in a casual slouch, one foot still on the coffee table, the other leg bent at the knee and falling open so that it bumped against Stiles,' Peter looked him over with some consideration before lifting his beer and clinking it with the one in Stiles' hand.

"It… kinda makes me nervous that you didn't answer that. Did I just walk in on some Italian Job shit?" he asked, even more unsettled when Peter huffed a chuckle and took a swig of his beer, his attention back on the episode of The Librarians he'd pulled up.

"Does it really matter?" he asked, stuffing a stack of chips into his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, digging into his own plate and immediately letting out a moan worthy of a porn star. "Oh my god dude," he exulted. "This. Is. Amazing."

"Evidently," Peter smirked, but Stiles didn't miss the way the guy's gaze traded up the TV for his mouth as he sucked the sour cream from his fingers.

"What?" he muttered, flushing pink and taking a slug of beer. "I like food, ok? And I've been sitting in front of your house since breakfast - I'm starving."

"Serves you right," Peter rumbled, going back to his food. "I should've left you out there. Would have too, but you were starting to look like a drug dealer. As a concerned citizen I couldn't leave you on the curb."

"So naturally you solve the problem by inviting the drug dealer in for lunch."

"Worst case scenario," Peter shrugged. "I was hoping somebody'd sent me a stripper."

Choking on his beer, Stiles lurched upright and tried not to cough nachos all over the place, glaring at Peter who was just smirking that stupid smirk he'd already started to recognize and knocking their knees together.

"People send you strippers often?" he snipped, scooching an inch down the couch huffily and opening up another pair of beers.

"Unfortunately no," Peter smiled indulgently taking the proffered bottle. "Kate sending me a private dick is the closest I've come to that particular fantasy. But enough about me," he added, snagging one last bite straight from the nacho platter and settling back into the corner of the couch, kicking off his boots and drawing one knee up onto the cushions so that he was angling toward Stiles. "What about you?"

"What about me?" he asked, suddenly nervous again.

What did this guy want to know about him? He was hot, rich, mysterious - what with the random stalker after his money. What in the world did he see in Stiles, a pale, skinny mess of a private detective that he'd just met?

"What do you do when you're not detecting?"

"Nothing," Stiles snorted, laughing derisively. "My dad's the Sheriff so I grew up on this stuff. Research, investigating, it was my… hobby all through high school. Went to college, studied criminal justice and a little bit of law. Made it my career."

"I knew I'd heard that name before," Peter mused, tracing a finger around the mouth of his bottle. "Sheriff John Stilinski…"

"That's the one."

"I take it that's why you were so desperate to stop me from calling the cops."

"Desperate's such a… _strong_ word," Stiles whined, starting to feel just a little bit warm as he finished off the last of his second beer, reached for the third. "Do you have _any_ idea how bad it would be for me if my dad or one of his deputies had to come out and arrest me for being a shitty P.I. who got caught by his mark?"

"I can imagine," Peter chuckled, and then he was reaching out and taking the beer away from him before he could get the top off.

Stiles frowned, made grabby hands for the bottle but Peter set it back on the table.

"Leave it," he said, apparently under no compunction to elaborate further. "So if detecting's the only thing you do…"

"How am I so bad at it?" Stiles asked, and to Peter's credit he didn't laugh, just waited silently for the answer. "I'm not, usually. At least not as much. It's just been a shitty few months. Maybe not as bad as yours - I'm not being stalked or anything…"

"But…"

"I got dumped," he said flatly, shrugging it off like it was no big deal. "Stupid right? It was pretty brutal. I didn't love him or anything, but the guy was my best friend. Job like this; you spend a lot of time sitting in cars by yourself with nothing better to do but think about the what-ifs."

"Seems like there are better ways to get over an ex," Peter mused, shifting forward to put his own empty bottle on the table, and Stiles felt his skin flush at the man's tone, the way his gaze traced over his body.

"What would you suggest then?" he asked nervously, licking his lips, and yeah, there was that grin, the one that said Stiles was in over his head but might enjoy being there.

Leaning in, he took Stiles' face between his hands and pulled him forward, guiding him into his lap until he was straddling Peter's hips as he reclined against the corner of the couch.

"Nachos and beer," he replied with a smart-assed smirk, his fingers curling around the back of Stiles' neck and dragging him down. "Maybe some rebound sex."

For a second Stiles hesitated, stared at the guy who held him firmly but was clearly waiting for permission, a guy who'd refused to label himself a nice man but who'd fed him and talked to him like a bro when he was well within his rights to just pack Stiles off to jail.

Then he smirked.

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

 **If anybody knows who put this prompt out into the ether, let me know so I can link it back!**

"I'm the private investigator that was hired by your ex to track you down and you totally caught me sitting outside your apartment in a rental car so hi what up" au


End file.
